To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by Marian Tee

  “Feel better now, Deli?”

  Dyvian smiled, too, and this time I burst into tears. They had done it again. “I’m really lucky you guys saved me,” I sobbed. I was a stranger to them. Why were they so nice, and why did they care so much that they did everything possible so I wouldn’t feel sad?

  “Oh, damn,” Dyvian whispered in a panic-stricken tone. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so busy crying. It was funny how grown men, even sophisticated ones like those two, could get so uncomfortable just because of tears.

  Lucian drew closer and patted my head awkwardly. “It’s okay now. We’re here.”

  His words only made me sob harder. “I know,” I wailed. “And that’s why I’m crying.”

  “Right.” Dyvian was trying hard to look like he understood me.

  I smiled in spite of my tears. “Don’t you see? I’m happy. I know I should be alone right now, but I’m not because I have you two.”

  They gave me several minutes to compose myself, and I sniffed out the last of my tears. “Okay now?” Dyvian asked uncertainly after a while.

  “Yes.” One last dab using the corner of my pillow erased the remaining traces of my tears.

  Dyvian visibly hesitated. “Well—”

  “I’m fine…and I still want to know what happened that night.”

  Lucian clasped his hands behind his back. “What can you remember of that time?”

  The memories came back swiftly, like they were always there, ready to ambush my thoughts. I swallowed. It hurt to relive those moments. It hurt to speak. But I forced myself to do both.

  “We were just driving… Davie was sleeping. I was listening to…Ne-Yo. I had my iPod with me. My parents were in front, talking, laughing. They teased me about moving out of New York and asked me if I was okay with living in Nevada if Dad’s business deal would push through.”

  My eyes flew open, and I stared at them in remembered horror. “Someone, something, had suddenly appeared before us, forcing my dad to swerve in the opposite direction.” I hugged my arms to myself, remembering what the man looked like. His eyes had glowed red, and there had been a feral quality to him that made me realize something bad was about to happen. He looked human, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t be, not when his evilness was almost like a breathing, salivating creature inside him. “I knew…” I gulped back the sobs. “Oh, God, but I knew just by looking at him that my father should have run him over. Just one look and my instincts had gone c-crazy…like they were telling me I had to do anything possible to kill him. B-but I was t-too late.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Lucian grated out.

  “He was incredibly strong,” I whispered. Sweat drenched my skin. More excruciating images swept through my mind, so vivid I could almost smell the scent of fire mingling with the dry, cool air of the desert.

  “He grabbed hold of our car and he tossed it upside down like it was nothing.” My voice rose and the words tumbled out in a rush, as if I believed that saying them quickly enough could prevent the past from becoming true. “And then the others came out of nowhere…three or four of them, maybe? They looked…excited, like they were having fun. Oh, God, how could they feel like that? Two of them dragged my parents away. I could hear them screaming. Davie was still stuck inside the car. The crash broke her leg somehow. I tried pulling her out of the car, but I kept falling, I was too dizzy. My hands were smeared with blood—”

  “That’s enough.”

  “We got out just before the car exploded. But someone had grabbed Davie, and I tried to get her back. She kept on screaming my name, and I tried…I really did try but I couldn’t go to her because someone kept hitting me and—”

  “I said that’s enough, Deli.” Lucian’s hard voice snapped me out of my reverie.

  Air swished out of my lungs. I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath the whole time I was talking. My body slumped forward, and I would have fallen if Lucian hadn’t been there to catch me.

  “It is enough,” I agreed tremulously. “Because the next thing I remember was you waking me up, asking me if I wanted to be saved.”

  I expected Lucian to explain, but he remained silent, still holding me in his arms. It was Dyvian who spoke. “We had received news from other Evren about Zekans coming to our territory. We could only track them by their scent. When we finally caught up to them, it was too late.” Pained regret filled his voice. “I’m sorry, Deli, but there was nothing else we could do. Your parents were dead. Davie had already been taken away, and we were lucky to get ahold of your captor.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Yes.” Lucian spoke dispassionately, like it was something to be expected, and I instinctively knew he had been the one to kill the creature holding me captive.

  I closed my eyes. “Good.” An odd sort of peace settled on me. I didn’t care if that made me bad. All I knew was how glad I was at least one of our attackers was dead.

  I bit my lip. “Do you know why they were after us?”

  Lucian shook his head. “Not yet.”

  I nodded against his chest, knowing even without Lucian speaking that he meant to find out.

  “They were Zekans, you said.” I recalled a bit drowsily. Lucian moved to tuck me in. I didn’t protest, but I forced myself to keep my eyes open. I didn’t want to go back to sleep until my mind was sufficiently clear about that night.

  “They’re our ancient enemies,” Dyvian said softly. “We were created together. But while we descend from dragons, Zekans are born from snakes.”

  “It fits,” I mumbled.

  Dyvian smiled. “Yes, it does.”

  “Are there many of us?” I held my breath.

  “Evren, you mean?” Dyvian smirked.

  “Yes.”

  “Not really.” Dyvian’s voice became bleak. “Not as many as there are Zekans.” He bent down and placed a kiss on my forehead. “But it’s not your place to worry about that. Right now, all we want is for you to sleep well, okay? We can talk more about your scales tomorrow.”

  I was too tired to make a face. “Whatever.” My voice was muffled slightly by the pillows as I turned to my side. Just when I thought I was alone, the sound of approaching footsteps tickled my ear, followed by another pair of lips pressing against my skin. It was a kiss on the cheek and my eyes flew open.

  Lucian.

  My cheek tingled as an almost painfully restless sensation zinged through my body. This was probably how being struck by lightning felt. Lucian had kissed me. It was both thrilling and heavenly, like God was reassuring me that life could still be okay.

  “You will be safe with us.”

  Instinctively, I reached out for his hand and squeezed it. He crouched down. “I know. I think I’m going to be happy, too. Thank you for taking me in. Thank you for saving my life.”

  He nodded.

  I wanted to laugh. I might not have known my reluctant rescuer for long, but it was something that I had expected him to do. He wasn’t just a man of few words. He was a guy who almost seemed to hate interacting with other people, and I could only count myself lucky that he hadn’t been feeling indifferent enough to leave me out that night to die.

  I gazed at his face, exhaustion making me feel even more vulnerable to its beauty. It was a mushy thought, but I really did feel I could drown in his eyes, their lush green color reminding me of twin pools of endless summer.

  So beautiful. I smiled sleepily at him. No wonder I have this little crush on him.

  Lucian jumped to his feet so quickly he almost lost his balance. Surprised at the sudden movement, I sat up and gazed at him, disoriented and anxious. “What is it?” I stared at him, bemused about the color suffusing his face.

  “Nothing,” he muttered, but he was glaring at me like I was the one who had made him red-faced. “Sleep tight.” He couldn’t seem to get out of the room fast enough and, though he closed the door gently behind him, something told me he was more in the mood to slam it shut.

  Chapter Three
r />   If I thought being Evren was glamorous, I’d obviously thought wrong. The most glamorous thing that could happen in Sanger was to occasionally catch a glimpse of a Ferrari or a limousine bearing prom queen hopefuls doing their best imitations of Girls Gone Wild along Highway 160.

  It had been ten days since my rescue. I now lived with the two Chevalier brothers in their Tudor home in Sanger, Nevada, a small town with a population of no more than ten thousand. Its lone claim to popularity was having the less-traveled road to Death Valley, the lowest and hottest place in the country. If you wanted to enjoy your solitude on the way to DV, as the locals called it, then Sanger was the only way to go.

  “I don’t get it,” I told Dyvian while wiping the sweat off my face. In just an hour, I think I’d sweated off a gallon of water just by watching Dyvian redesign the Chevaliers’ backyard under Sanger’s merciless sun. No one in America would understand the meaning of “hot” until they’d lived in Sanger.

  Dyvian sighed. “There are a lot of things you don’t seem to get.”

  If he thought I’d take that as an insult, he was quite wrong. I knew girls like me were usually typecast as pretty…and pretty dumb. While others would deny this even if it were true, I had no problem admitting I wasn’t as smart as other people. I knew I wasn’t stupid, but I knew I was no genius either, which was why I asked about anything that confused me.

  Dyvian planted the shovel in the soil and leaned one arm on its handle. “What don’t you get this time?”

  I waved my hand to encompass our surroundings—our very dreary surroundings. The great expanse of the Mojave Desert stretched out before us. It was a beautiful sight, but after a while, you tended to get bored with just how…well…natural and desolate it all was. For Sanger, Nevada, nightlife was all about eerily barking sand dunes, howling coyotes, cactuses with creepy shadows, and a frighteningly deep and isolated sense of silence.

  It was bad enough living in a small town but the Chevalier brothers had to prove there was something worse by choosing to live on the outskirts, with the nearest point of civilization miles and miles away.

  This was sooo not the life I planned on having, especially not when I could do cool things now like turn invisible and move like Catwoman without needing a costume. How could I even let Halle Berry know her throne was under threat when I was neck deep in nothing and trapped in Nowhere, Nevada?

  I had to convince Lucian and Dyvian that they were driving me crazy with isolation.

  I cleared my throat. “Why did you guys choose to live here, Dyv?”

  “Because Evren thrive in heat and you can’t get anywhere hotter than this.”

  “So you just need the heat, huh?” My mind almost burst with the possibilities that could bring. “I hear Hawaii’s hot.” I did my best to sound casual and not seem like I was already dreaming about a lifetime of strolling the beach and attending luaus. Davie would like living in Hawaii, too.

  The thought of my younger sister depressed me. Dyvian told me Lucian had left town to find out about Davie’s present condition. I knew in my heart she wasn’t dead. I’d have felt it if she were.

  But not being dead didn’t mean she wasn’t hurt, and I had sought Dyvian’s company to take my mind off my worries, even if it meant having to sweat it out helping Dyvian gift his beloved rock garden with a spring makeover. Lucian said it was the only thing that could rouse Dyvian out of his lifetime dedication to idleness.

  “Stop worrying about Davie.” Dyvian’s voice gently intruded on my thoughts.

  I forced myself to quit frowning and smiled at him more brightly than usual. Dyvian was right. Worrying would get me nowhere. Davie was fine and until proven otherwise, I wouldn’t believe anything else. Head in the sand again? Definitely.

  “So, what do you think? How about living in Hawaii instead?”

  Dyvian shook his head. “We don’t like water.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “It’s not the natural habitat for Evren.” He took his shovel and started digging again.

  I crouched down with a tired sigh and began scooping soil to fill the garden pots once more.

  Water wasn’t the natural habitat for Evren? That was it? Did he think that explained everything? Whatever. I’d worry about that when I had to. But wait…I looked at Dyvian with suspicion. “That doesn’t mean we can’t take a bath, right?” Evren or no Evren, I wasn’t letting myself stink just because water wasn’t home sweet home for my new species.

  Dyvian shot me an odd look. “You think the craziest things. I just said we don’t like water, not that we couldn’t stand it.”

  “Just making sure.” My mind jumped to the next possible destination—any other place seemed better than Sanger. “What about California? It’s not an island, it can get ridiculously hot there, and it has access to Death Valley, too.” Dyvian hadn’t fully explained this bit to me, but I’d gathered that DV was an important place for Evren. It was like their Vatican City, but it could also have been their Big Apple, where everything important usually happened.

  “Too crowded,” Dyvian dismissed while he went on shoveling. Although bare-chested and dirt-smudged, he still managed to look gorgeous and fashionable in loose plaid trousers tucked into a pair of designer army boots with titanium-rimmed sunglasses perched on his nose.

  But I didn’t feel one iota of attraction for him at all, and that worried me because—

  “Why are you asking about where we live?”

  Lucian’s unexpected appearance made me lose my balance, and I fell on my butt with a groan.

  “Don’t—” I lost my train of thought upon meeting his steady gaze. My heart fluttered—yes, damn it, fluttered. Who the heck knew hearts still fluttered?

  Dyvian, like Lucian, was also tall, dark, and handsome. He was charming, albeit annoying at times, while Lucian was just plain disturbing. So why, why, why did my heart ignore the one who was my match in every way and insist on the one that was my exact opposite?

  Lucian choked. Despite being dressed in his usual Spartan tandem of plain shirt and jeans, he still managed to carry it off like they were created by Armani. Did he favor plain dressing because he knew he was too handsome to need any kind of enhancement? If he did, he was right. Damn it.

  Dyvian laughingly pulled me up. I brushed away the dirt clinging to the bottom of my jeans and resumed glaring at Lucian. “I told you to stop it with the whole silent sneaking thing.”

  “Deli. I wasn’t sneaking. You just don’t pay attention. As always.”

  Argh. “That’s not the point and I don’t like you anymore,” I snapped without thinking, incensed at the lack of apology.

  Dyvian and Lucian stared at me in shock.

  Then I realized what I had said. “It’s—it’s an expression. I use it all the time with my family and friends when they don’t do what I want.”

  “Ah.” Dyvian nodded understandingly.

  “You really are spoiled, aren’t you?”

  I smiled at him sweetly. “Yes, and as a new addition to your family, you’re obliged to spoil me, too.”

  Dyvian pretended to cough so he could hide his laughter.

  Lucian’s shock was satisfying, short but sweet.

  “I will not spoil you.” Ice dripped from his words.

  I blasted him with my best debutante smile, aiming to melt the ice with honey and sugar. I even batted my eyelashes, completely focused on annoying Lucian. It was that or let myself become aware of how my heart was still fluttering in his presence. Oh, God, his presence. Just his presence. What would I do if he started treating me nicely and not like someone he was forced to adopt?

  I mentally shook my head and glanced back at Lucian, only to catch him looking at me intently, like he was listening to me—which was weird, of course, since I hadn’t spoken a word. “Lucian?”

  The pensive look on his face vanished and he lifted a brow. “What?”

  “I’ll make you spoil me if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Dyvian feigned
hurt. “If you do, Lucian, I’ll be jealous. I’m your brother but you’ve never spoiled me.” We exchanged conspiring smiles. Although the two of us tended to fight like cats and dogs, one thing we did bond over was annoying Lucian.

  A hint of exasperation threaded Lucian’s voice. “Stop uttering such nonsense, Dyvian.” He turned to me with a frown. “You, too.”

  I shrugged. “It’s not nonsense. It’s fact.”

  “Keep talking like that and I won’t tell you what I’ve found out about Davie.”

  “Is she okay? Where is she? Did you talk to her?” The questions poured out of me in a breathless rush. How could I have forgotten about Davie?